Everyone can benefit from functional medicine in St. George UT.
While mainstream medicine focuses on treating acute problems using prescription medications and surgery, functional medicine seeks to look at the whole picture, treating pathology at the root of the cause. The doctors look at the whole body and how each system affects the other. They also look at how the person’s environment affects the body’s ability to work at the rate of function it needs to handle its daily tasks properly. (For example: interactions between the environment and the gastrointestinal, endocrine, and immune systems). By addressing factors such as sleep, exercise, stress, relationships and genetics, functional medicine goes straight to the root causes of many ailments that we face as a result of often complex underlying factors.
By shifting the focus from the actual disease to a more patient-centric approach, functional medicine addresses the whole person, rather than only treating patients’ symptoms. Disease is complex, and one of the major shortcomings of conventional medicine is the fact that it fails to look past the symptoms to find the root cause of illness. It is satisfied with simply treating the same symptoms over and over again, with no real recovery or actual improvement.
Functional medicine turns that approach on its head by focusing on the antecedents (underlying causes), the triggers (immediate causes), and the mediators (particular characteristics of a patient’s illness). By doing so, functional medicine is able to bring about a state of true health and wellbeing in the patient.
Dr. Marc Lyman and Dr. Scott Graf look “upstream” to consider the complex web of interactions in a patient’s history, physiology, and lifestyle that can lead to illness. The unique genetic makeup of each patient is considered, along with both internal (mind, body, and spirit) and external (physical and social environment) factors that affect the overall body function. Dr. Marc Lyman and Dr. Scott Graf address the underlying causes of disease, using a systems-oriented approach that engages both patient and practitioner in a therapeutic partnership.
If you think functional medicine in St. George UT could help you, please give us a call.
Holistic Healthcare St. George UT 435-773-1223